Technology

The problem is that building nuclear is slower and more expensive than just building renewables. It made some sense when labor was cheaper. But it doesn’t anymore.

Yeah we need to electrify transportation, heating, fertiliser and steel production. What you need to consider is that these all have excellent synergies with renewable energy. Making fertiliser from nuclear power never made sense and never will make sense. But with solar power it’s just now barely cheap enough to make sense. There are already plants up and running. And you then get a huge amount of capacity to balancer solar/wind for free as well. The same goes for transportation, steel production and especially heat. We already have heat batteries in production. Both super high temperature ones to replace fossil fuels in industry, and medium temperature ones that can store energy for months to shift energy from summer to winter for district heating systems.

None of this makes economic sense with nuclear (well, EVs make sense still).

I have nothing against nuclear. I love the tech. But it’s simply dead. And no, SMRs is not gonna save it.